City and South London Railway - Opening

Opening

The railway was opened officially by Edward, Prince of Wales (later Edward VII) on 4 November 1890. It was opened to the public on 18 December 1890. Initially, it had stations at:

• Stockwell
• The Oval (now Oval)
• Kennington
• Elephant & Castle
• Borough
• King William Street

The original service was operated by trains composed of an engine and three carriages. Thirty-two passengers could be accommodated in each carriage, which had longitudinal bench seating and sliding doors at the ends, leading onto a platform for boarding and alighting. It was reasoned that there was nothing to look at in the tunnels, so the only windows were in a narrow band high up in the carriage sides. Gate-men rode on the carriage platforms to operate the lattice gates and announce the station names to the passengers. Because of their claustrophobic interiors, the carriages soon became known as padded cells. Unlike other railways, the C&SLR had no ticket classes or paper tickets; when the railway began operations, a flat fare of two pence, collected at a turnstile, was charged. Despite the cramped carriages and competition from bus and tram services, the railway attracted 5.1 million passengers in 1891, its first year of operation. To alleviate overcrowding, the fleet of rolling stock was enlarged.